Week Forty: The Botany of Desire

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan is at odds with it's stated intention. Ostensibly it's an in depth look at four plants and the desires they engender in humanity (or conversely that we seek in them). But it is also a book about the nature of nature, who drives who and classical studies and greco-roman mythology.

One level is about the four plants, The Apple, Tulip, Marijuana and Potato. And the four histories provide some fascinating insight on the history of and subsequent placement of the four plants in our own history. Learned a whole bunch of stuff. Apples were not routinely eaten for pleasure until approx 100 years ago when advertisers came up with an apple a day etc... prior to this they were mainly a source for booze, not nutrition. The Tulip is descended from the Turkish word for Turban (look at a picture of them both). Marijuana inhibits short term memories the same way the cannabinoids(?) in women's brains prevent them from recalling the specifics of childbirth. Monsanto is evil and messes with potatoes (ok I already knew that).

Another level is the desires and the relationship they have with plants - do plants react to our desires or do our desires reflect the directions the plants drive us in, which comes first - the chicken or the egg. Darwinian ideals drive all these thoughts, but to ascribe them to plants seems silly and counter-intuitive - they have no conscious thought - not in conventional sense - but maybe in a genetic imperative one?

And then each section is bathed in the classic fight of mythology and ancient greco-roman classics, Apollonian order vs Dionysian excess. Marijuana's battle in this arena is particularly captivating as it's effect and purpose is Dionysian but it would not exist and thrive without an Apollonian structure for growth and evolution (through Artificial Selection - not Natural).

Very interesting book and just deep enough to be entertaining while not so massively overdone to bore with too much biological detail.

Next Week: Either 1984, or a book on Math or one of my new Book Depository books on Semiotics or children's literature.